Carpentersville strategic plan 'all about community' says fire chief

Carpentersville Fire Chief John-Paul Schilling said the department's first comprehensive strategic plan is a work in progress. (Erin Sauder / The Courier-News)

The Carpentersville Fire Department is closer to having its first comprehensive strategic plan in place.

But, noted Fire Chief John-Paul Schilling, it's still a work in progress.

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"It's a lot of work. It's not anything that's going to be done quickly but we want to do it right," he said during his update to village trustees at Tuesday's board meeting.

The process came as a result of the "100 Day Plan" Schilling was tasked with when he took the helm of the fire department last June by Village Manager Mark Rooney. The initiative's overall objectives, established through the collaborative efforts of village administration, battalion chiefs, and executive board members of the fire department's full and part time unions, included improving and/or increasing communication, improving training, safety, and risk management, and increasing personnel collaboration through the creation of various committees.

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"One of the committees that was formed was the strategic planning committee that has been integral to putting all this together," Schilling said.

That committee is made up of village administration as well as full and part-time union members.

"And as we move forward, each one of the other committees will have an integral part of writing their piece and developing their piece for the strategic plan based on their specific areas," Schilling said.

Strategic planning is not about just producing a document, he said.

"The process is for us more of an improvement of our culture in the fire department. The strategic plan is a vision of our future. It's a mindset for our personnel to continue to move forward," Schilling said. "It's a cycle that should never end and one that continually seeks ways of improvement to do better for our department and our community."

The five broad-based goals of the plan focus on safety, response, innovation, cooperative efforts, and community, the latter which fire officials said is the keystone of the department.

"That is the center of our focus and should always be the center of our focus. Everything around it — when you're talking about safety, response, cooperative efforts and innovation — all those focus in on community and how do they benefit the community. That's the direction the strategic process is going through. It's all about community," Schilling said.

For instance, one goal of the department is to establish a comprehensive community risk reduction program through public education, fire prevention and life safety services, communications, and comprehensive emergency medical services.

As the strategic planning process moves forward, so too will the momentum for continuing to improve the culture of the fire department, Schilling said.

"It's a process going from a rule-based department to one that's focused on values," he said. "The rule-based organization sets the standards with rules. And rules incidentally focus on the minimum acceptable behavior for an organization. The minimum. You really want your firefighters and paramedics to go out there and only perform at the minimum level? No. We want to focus on what their values are and establish those values as the department's values so when they go out they perform at a higher level with a higher value."

To facilitate that, an anonymous values audit is currently being conducted throughout the department.

"These members write their top 10 values. They take those top 10 values and as a shift they put them together and they come up with a top 10 shift values. Then the three shifts are going to come together and we're going to create the top 10 values of the department based off of everybody's input," he said.

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Trustee Don Burroway praised the initiative.

"That's a good plan. I think that really helps (personnel) take ownership of that shift or that department," he said.

Schilling said he will continue to provide Village Board members with updates on the planning process.